Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old charged with stabbing his parents to death at their £10 million Los Angeles home, has filed a court petition demanding access to his inheritance trust while he awaits trial in custody — claiming the trustee’s refusal to release funds has already cost him his choice of defence lawyer.
In documents filed on Monday, Nick petitioned to receive the money his parents Rob and Michele set aside for him in a trust, arguing he was contractually entitled to half of the $1.5 million fund when he turned 30, with the remainder due at 35. He claims the current trustee, identified as Paul Kanin, has raised “a shifting series of excuses and justifications” for withholding the funds, citing “unsubstantiated concerns” about Nick’s competence to manage a trust despite the terms his parents established.
The practical consequences of the dispute have been severe. When Nick attempted to retain prominent defence lawyer Alan Jackson to represent him on the murder charges, he says the trustee refused to pay Jackson’s fees, forcing the attorney to withdraw from the case. Nick has since been represented by a public defender. “Every additional week of delay is a week in which the counsel of his choice cannot investigate or prepare on his behalf — prejudice to his defence that cannot be undone,” his lawyers argue in the petition, adding that he currently lacks funds even for basic necessities such as soap and socks while in custody.
Nick is now seeking a full accounting from the trustee and damages, and accuses Kanin of paying lawyers to raise successive objections as a means of holding onto the funds for a further two years in violation of the trust’s plain terms.
Prosecutors say Nick killed his parents at their $13.5 million Brentwood home on 14 December, fatally stabbing both before fleeing the scene. The bodies were reportedly discovered by his younger sister Romy. Nick had earlier been seen in a loud argument with his father at a Christmas party hosted by television host Conan O’Brien just hours before the killings. He has pleaded not guilty to six felony charges, including two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of special circumstances involving multiple murder and two counts involving a deadly weapon. Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman has said the death penalty remains on the table. “This case is a death penalty eligible case,” Hochman said, adding that his office would consider all mitigating and aggravating circumstances through “a very rigorous process.”
Nick has a documented history of mental health and substance abuse issues.
In April, his older brother Jake, 34, wrote a heartbreaking public essay about the impact of the tragedy on the surviving family. He described learning from his sister Romy, 28, that their parents had been murdered — and then the secondary horror of discovering his own brother was charged with the killings. “We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way imaginable,” he wrote. “Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time and, on top of that, having your brother be at the centre of it.”
Jake paid tribute to both parents, describing his mother Michele as “the engine, the backbone, and the heart of our entire family” and his father Rob — the Hollywood director behind films including When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men — as his guiding light. “I would trade every Dodger game, every Broadway show, every vacation, if I could just spend just one more hour talking to them and to say goodbye,” he wrote.
Rob and Michele Reiner had been married for 36 years at the time of their deaths.
